Defrosted breast milk. What should I do?

[lilikoi]

My 5 month old DD has to be supplemented once a day (5-8oz). I have supply issues due to an undiagnosed tongue tie. It took 4 months and 8 lactation professionals to find out what was wrong. If I don't supplement, she doesn't gain any weight. I have tried everything the past 5 months to bring my supply up with no luck.

I had to travel out of the country for work and planned on bringing donated breast milk with me frozen in dry ice. I carried a cooler with me on the plane, but the rest of the milk had to be checked with regular luggage. The airline lost the bag that had the cooler inside. By the time we got the bag (24hrs later), the milk had defrosted but was cold. A lot of the bags still had ice in them. I put them in the freezer right away.

My question is, can I still use this milk? The info I have is that once you defrost bm, you have 24hrs to use it and you cannot refreeze it. I cannot get anymore donated milk here and my only option is to supplement my DD with formula which I don't want to do. 

Thanks for any suggestions you can give. :)

[ewe+lamb]

I am so sorry that this happened to you, all that wonderful precious milk that you pumped, however, my information is the same as yours, that  it needs to be used within the first 24 hours after that either refreeze, use or discard, that's from LLL's Womanly Art of Breastfeeding but personally I'm not sure if I would want to refreeze as on a different page it states that defrosted breastmilk should never be refrozen - hmm some conflicting information which we need to get to the bottom of, if you don't want to discard it - I can really understand that - then you could use it in your everyday cooking - it's great in muffins!!!  Or maybe that's a bit too much for you - worth a try though!  I never told my dh and he wolfed them down - LOL

[PatioGardener]

I think you can use it if it still smells/tastes good when you defrost it. I'm going to find the thread that talks about it. I'll be back...

eta: http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/685299/should-i-toss-freezer-stash#post_8389597

I think because it is supplementation (in addition to Mama's own milk) I would be less concerned about using it than if it were my DS's only source of nutrition.

Edited by PatioGardener - 6/12/11 at 12:33pm

[lilikoi]

Thanks for the replies. The link was super useful. After reading everything, I decided I am going to use the milk. I will do the smell/taste test before feeding it to her. I am also taking domperidone which I can buy over the counter here. Hopefully my supply will increase and I can stop supplementing her. Thanks again!